


The pros and cons of incest: An illustrated guide by the Greek Gods.

by IceBreeze



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-03 23:19:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15828987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceBreeze/pseuds/IceBreeze
Summary: In the end, they draw straws; Allison and Dan and Seth, the oldest and the youngest pitted against each other. Some would say it was a game of chance, of luck, but they all knew it was something bigger, something more- that F word no-one dared to utter. They take their straws, their life sentences, and retreat to the corners that are now their worlds. Dan goes to the sky, to the throne on Olympus as bright as her smile and the lightning bolt at her waist; she goes with a laugh and a good natured slap on each of their shoulders. Seth submerges himself in the ocean with choice curses, as salty as the water that is now his kingdom; it is a gift, but he is determined to make it a prison. And Allison- she goes back into the darkness, to the cradle they call the Underworld. It is as familiar as it is not, comforting as it is unnerving, and she settles on her throne. Smiles out at this place she can now call home.And feels, in the warmth that envelopes her body, that it smiles back.A story in which Allison is Hades, Renee is Persephone, and some things are not as the myth said they were (others, unfortunately, are).





	1. Hey, I just met you. And this is crazy. But I’m gonna make you a god now, so call me maybe.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheAmused](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAmused/gifts).



> So this is my final big bang piece, though it is not what I intended to use. I spent most of the event working on a different piece (still a Hades & Persephone AU) but then I ended up needing to publish it in something in real life, so I obviously couldn't post it on here. This I whipped up in two days and did very minor editing on because the posting date was imminent (and all the thanks go to TheAmused for helping me with that, you're an absolute legend and I love you). So yeah, not how the event is supposed to be done, but alls well that ends well, right? 
> 
> The artist I was working with is the lovely [@ghostinas](https://ghostinas.tumblr.com/) and [their art](https://ghostinas.tumblr.com/post/177555634689/polyhymina-and-i-partnered-up-for-the) is genuinely awe inspiring and they're a really great person, so please check out their beautiful art piece that goes with this and give it all the love (and I'm sorry again about the sudden change in fic).
> 
> So yeah, I hope y'all enjoy this fic!

The story of Hades and Persephone is one most people know. To some, it is the age old tale of a man, shunned from the power he so desired, embittered by the perceived unfairness of his lot in life. The tale of a man who sees a woman and wants her so desperately that he abducts her, rapes her in a frightening new land , forces her to be his wife with little thought to her own desires in life. It is the tale a victim and her abuser, of a woman who grabbed a terrible situation and made the best of it, who became a Queen to make any man tremble before her. To others, it is the story of a woman whose curiosity sends her tumbling from the arms of her mother and into the realm of a King feared as much as he is reviled.

But nobody knows the real story- the truth about it, so long buried beneath fabrications and twists that humans added to embellish it, to make it fit with their own image. If there were any record of the truth it has long been lost- until today. For the real story is this: Hades was not a King, but a Queen. But to explain this, we must start from the beginning- for she was not always the Queen she eventually came to be, and there was a time in her life long before Persephone.

She was born to the Titans Cronus and Rhea, a little girl with the beauty of her mother and the eyes of her father. She was the first child, and the first victim- for though she was a girl, she was still his child, and Cronus was not taking any risks. Rheia barely got to name her ‘Allison’ before he’d devoured her, swallowed whole.

So it was in his stomach she took her first breath, and it was in his stomach she grew, the only world she knew one of claustrophobic darkness. Walking and talking were concepts she knew of, in her rapidly growing mind, but they were not things she could execute herself, in this tiny cradle of hers. She knew she lived and breathed and she knew her name, but she did not know what the sun felt like on her skin or what it was like to feel a mother’s kiss on her brow. She knew her name was Allison, but she didn’t know what it sounded like from another lips.

The only thing familiar was the dark, and it was the only thing that never changed. For things did change, you see, even inside her father’s stomach- she had company, now. Siblings, all who joined her year after year as Cronus kept up his routine of eating babies. First came Seth, then Matt, then Katelyn, then Thea, all of whom followed in Allison’s footsteps. It was nice, she found, having company like this, even if most of them didn’t seem as fond of the darkness and often the noise took the form of arguments. Though, to be fair, a lot of the arguments were between her and Seth, or Neil and Seth, or- well, anyone and Seth.

But then, centuries later, a rock joined them. Not a child, as it should have been, or even one who he’d been turned to stone- it was just a rock. An anomaly, if she’d ever seen one, and Allison wasn’t sure what to make of it. Had Rhea and Cronus somehow given birth to a rock? It might be possible, for all she knows- it’s not like she has much of a frame of reference. The only thing clear about the rock is that it makes things rather uncomfortable for them, inside her Father’s stomach; it was cramped enough with the five of them, but now with a rock? It kept getting stuck in places, and every time someone got hit with it they made the rest of them suffer with a bad mood and arguments were more common. Unpleasantly so, even- if they could see the passing of day and night they’d know that they never managed to go a day without an argument anymore.

Until one day a knife came down into their world, cutting apart Cronus at the seams, slicing open the stomach so they could see the world. A hand came down and pulled them out and they found themselves looking at their sister and the world outside. _Dan_ , she said, smiling, her white smile a stark contrast to her brown skin. _My name is Dan, sisters and brothers. What are yours?_

Their answers were hesitant in the echoing silence of Olympus, blood still warm on the ground, the first time these words have been spoken aloud outside of the confines of their Father’s stomach. She hugged them all, said _‘I’m glad,_ ’ and it was more than just sentiment; it was a confirmation. A reminder that they were real and this was the world open to them. And though there were things to do, matters to be dealt with- they stood there and basked, feeling the sun on their skin, tasting the fresh air on their tongues.

They’d waited centuries for this, after all; what harm could a few more hours do?

 

 

In the end, they draw straws; Allison and Dan and Seth, the oldest and the youngest pitted against each other. Some would say it was a game of chance, of luck, but they all knew it was something bigger, something more- that F word no-one dared to utter. They take their straws, their life sentences, and retreat to the corners that are now their worlds. Dan goes to the sky, to the throne on Olympus as bright as her smile and the lightning bolt at her waist; she goes with a laugh and a good natured slap on each of their shoulders. Seth submerges himself in the ocean with choice curses, as salty as the water that is now his kingdom; it is a gift, but he is determined to make it a prison. And Allison- she goes back into the darkness, to the cradle they call the Underworld. It is as familiar as it is not, comforting as it is unnerving, and she settles on her throne. Smiles out at this place she can now call home.

And feels, in the warmth that envelopes her body, that it smiles back. 

 

 

Dan and Matt are wed within a half century, sitting side by side on their matching thrones in the gilded halls of Olympus. They are called Queen and King, and everyone gathers to congratulate them. No-one has escaped unchanged, after all these years, the powers and lifes gifted on them seeping into their very cores- shadows fall wherever Allison steps these days, a darkness as unshakeable as the stench of death, whilst Thea always radiates warmth, a glow around her in dim lights. Katelyn smells of grain, of the outdoors, and wherever Dan walks there is always the telltale crackle of static electricity, a whiff of ozone in the air. Seth, on the rare times someone manages to catch him, smells of salt water and the ocean breeze, and Matt- Matt smells of motherhood, the comforting presence of a lullaby.

It is the first time they have all gathered together since they left to their separate corners, and it is a night of revelry, of celebration- Dan, the laurel leaves of her crown gleaming on her head, pulls Allison into a hug: “It’s glad to see you’ve not become a skeleton, Sister!”

“Not for lack of trying, I assure you; I haven’t quite figured it out yet.”

“Well if anyone could pull off being a skeleton, it would be you.”

“Obviously, I can pull of anything.”

Dan laughs, and Allison joins her, takes in the sight of her with greedy eyes, like a moth drawn to a flame. “You look dazzling, Sister, all ready for your bride?”

“That I am.” She beamed. “Courting him was an experience, but it was worth it, I believe.”

“You love him?”

“I love him. And he does me.”

“Then I wish you well, in all your incestuous glory.”

Dan’s snort was loud enough to put thunder to shame, but Allison was already moving aside to allow the next guest to take over.

_(A century later and their children had joined Olympus’ numbers)._

 

 

One thing that time changed abundantly was humanity- what was once a handful of them cropping up here and there had become a veritable horde, spreading across the world like ants and developing at an alarming rate. They could grow by leaps and bounds in the space of a decade, entire cultures falling and forming in a century- it was something frightening, to the long lived Gods, to whom immortality meant they took their time in most endeavours. But humans, it seemed, were driven only by the need to go faster, curiosity greater than their sense, and it was fascinating to watch. Even Seth, who seemed determined to hate the cosmos and everything in it, was intrigued by them, and so these mortals found themselves the favourite entertainment for a bunch of bored deities. Bastard children started cropping up, along with those who had been blessed or cursed by Gods, the many who had found their lives altered by a certain interfering hand. To Olympus, mortals were an interesting entertainment- this new, strange toy that they have to poke and prod to understand.

But to Allison, they are a staple of life. A commonality, as mundane as any other: the sky is blue, the ocean is salty, humans will die. They die, often and easily enough that it might be concerning to someone prone to such consideration, and when they die they come to Allison’s realm. There is a place for them, there, whether it is one they’d want or not, and she makes sure they go to the correct place with the help of her subjects- her people. This is her job, just as Jeremy’s is to make the sun rise and Jean’s is the moon. And because of this familiarity, the way she sees humans all day and every day, drifting this way and that in loss over what to do now they are no longer alive, they do not excite her as they do her brethren.

And yet, somehow, the humans learn about her. Learn about all of them, from the gilded halls of Olympus to the watery castle under the sea to the dark halls buried far under the earth; they learn about the Gods, these siblings living lives so gifted to them by fate, and they find something in them that could never have been predicted. They find _faith_ , a belief so reverent that some go so far as to dedicate their lives to it, and so their truth expands into something beyond. The humans give them names, dedicate temples to them, worship and thank and pray to them for blessings or hope or- in Allison’s case- mercy. They fear her in the same breath they love others, and it- hurts, so to speak. Stings, to see the way they sing and dance and build cities in honour of her siblings, but only ever speak her name (the name they gave her) behind closed doors, desperate to avoid drawing her gaze out of worry of what she might do.

They call her Hades, declare her the cruel King of Death, and it makes something inside her shutter itself, like the closing of a glass window.

_(And though she knows, distantly, that she is not the only one whose life has been twisted in such a way- they call Dan Zeus, declare her a King because clearly only a man can have such a position, and make Matt her wife Hera because surely only a woman can care about something as tender as childbirth. Knows that they call Jeremy and Jean twins when they are lovers, named them Apollo and Artemis when they couldn’t be farther from the truth; knows that in all the statues they erect for Katelyn, they are far too thin to be her, make it out as if her size is also something to be ashamed of._

_She knows that the humans are not famed for their accuracy or their perception, but still- it hurts. And no-one ever said that hurt was logical)._

 

 

Though Allison lacks the obsession of the rest of the Gods, she is not immune to moments of curiosity. There are so many things about them that are strange, that she doesn’t understand and is drawn to because of it- like their wars, for example. She knows of war, from the talks Kevin (or Athena, as the humans are intent to know him as) and from the way the number of dead will swell all at once, her realm unable to deal with such a rapid increase in population. She knows of it, but she does not know it- does not understand the preoccupation with destroying each other, does not see why they fight so hard for petty struggles that will be forgotten in fifty or so years when everyone involved is little more than bone and a lost soul.

She doesn’t understand but she wants to, so she goes to see it herself. A first hand witness to one of their struggles, a raven flying unnoticed over the battlefield. It’s interesting, for sure- violent and loud and almost overwhelming, every sound and smell so visceral it’s like she’s with them in the midst, fighting alongside of them. Every time one of them dies she feels it, and so many of them die- so very many, so very easily. It’s almost underwhelming how easily they die, how very lacking they are in any kind of defining feature, and perhaps she would have flown away with just that glimpse; perhaps that would have been enough for her, on that day, and this story wouldn’t be happening. Perhaps, if it wasn’t for the cards Fate dealt, there wouldn’t be a story.

But there is a story and it is happening, because she didn’t fly away- instead, like a magpie spotting something shiny, she found herself drawn to a particular mortal. A woman, with her hair shorn short and bloodied enough that you can barely see that it was brown at one point, her lips twisted into an ugly expression as she hacks her way through limb and life. Instead of the typical shield and a sword that soldiers seemed to prefer, or even the spears that were visible here and there, she wielded small knives in her hands, more strapped here and there on her body as she cut her way through the battlefield. _It’s like she’s dancing_ , Allison thought, flying closer so she could follow her progress, and there was a beauty to it, in all its grim, bloodied glory.

 _(She wondered_ , is this why they’re always so fascinated by wars? _)_

The woman seemed untouchable, like an eagle flying through the air as it hunts its prey across the world, but in the end, she was only mortal and like all mortals, was fallible. Someone manages to cut her heel and she falls, falls, falls, life snapped out quicker than the flame of a candle. And still, Allison watches, finding herself unable to leave for some reason- some feeling- she can’t identify.

The fighting dies out eventually, one side triumphing over the other even though both are littered with the dead, and once they’ve all trudged away Allison comes to land near the dancing woman, shifting back into the form she calls her own. The dancing woman lies, skin as lifeless as her staring eyes, and Allison kneels down, pulls her head in her lap. Brushes matted locks from her foreheads and stares at the face that is hard, even in death, apparently never having known peace. She stares, at this woman who drew her so completely for such a short amount of time, and wonders why she feels like this.

And then, in an act of impulse she’d thought herself above, she lowers her head and breathes life into this mysterious dancer, yanks her soul to her with both hands and holds it tight. Thinks this is not where you should die and tries not to startle at the fierceness of the thought.

_(The soul in her hands glow as brightly as the woman it belonged to her had, and it’s the most beautiful thing Allison has ever seen)._

 

 

After careful consideration, Allison takes her to Katelyn. Out of all of them (with exception to perhaps Matt) she is the most nurturing, and for all that Allison is intrigued by this dancing woman and her power to give and take life at her will, she is hardly capable at helping someone find themselves after being reborn as a God. Plus, the Underworld is hardly a place for anyone to flourish (with certain, select exceptions), and Allison knows little about mortals beyond what she’s seen in the trials and through her looking glass. No, Allison is probably the least suited person out there for this, which is why she turns to her sister.

Katelyn is amongst those who are closest to humans, fond of them in a way that’s more genuine than most of the Olympians, and she’s compassionate, which is why she is the one Allison turns to. The warm smile she greets Allison with turns to surprise when she sees a sleeping Goddess in her arms, spirit young in a way at odds to the body, and she whispers, “What is this, Sister?”

“I cradled her at death and gave her the gift of Godhood,” Allison replies. “Will you care for her as I cannot, Katelyn?”

“Is this right? Won’t the Fates be displeased with you?”

“It is what it is; the Fates have no power over me in regards to how I carry out my duties. I only worry as to how she will cope with the change; she needs someone to guide her. Will you take that role?”

“I will,” Katelyn vowed, cupping the sleeping soldier’s face with a gentle hand. “I will treat her as if she were my daughter, and love her so, this I swear to you.”

“As it should be,” Allison murmurs, and the body is placed in Katelyn’s gentle hold, something already approaching devotion on her face. Allison hears her whisper, “ _my daughter_ ,” and wonders if she didn’t just help two lives today, instead of one.

Neither Goddess notices when she turns back into a raven and flies away.

  

 

Katelyn keeps Allison updated on the progress of this dancing soldier- Renee, as she has so called herself, and the name makes something flutter inside her stomach, like the beat of butterfly wings- but she does not see her for many decades. Allison is busy in the Underworld, the number of dead only growing with every passing day to the point that she ends up having to create several more creatures to help her deal with it- Thanatos, the personification of Death is one such creature, a part of her own soul mixed with the tears of a nymph and given form, a shadow of her in all senses of the word, and yet he somehow manages to be kinder than she does in spite of it. She’s fond of him, dearly, and the speed with which this feeling cements itself is almost frightening. For caring is frightening, and she’s ill prepared to feel it for people she isn’t related to.

Another such creature is Cerberus, a three headed dog who guards the realm and soon becomes a staple in humanities horror stories. It’s not something Hades can understand, for though she made them to protect and intimidate, they are sweet and more affectionate than anything in the Underworld should be. There’s something heartening about being adored by such a creature, something that makes you feel like you have a place in the world, and eventually she starts taking him with her everywhere.

The Underworld is her place in a way nothing else in the cosmos ever will, and this is something her siblings respect for they never intrude here- with the exception of her nephew David, who comes with messages and requests often enough that he’s practically another staple of her life. But there is one thing that will never be something she can consider hers, or even think of with fondness, and that is the Fate’s; they’ve made their little lair in a corner of her realm, playing their games with all the lives around them. And, as the God whose work most closely coincides with theirs, she is required to have meetings with them twice a decade- a requirement she despises as much as she does them.

When she walks in, they are as the always are; Andrew spinning the thread of life, Nicky measuring it, and Aaron cutting it. They look up in unison, the eye in Nicky’s head, and though only one of them smile there is a distinct sense of amusement; the shears in Aaron’s hand creak as they close and were Allison a lesser person- one who was still at the mercy of their every whim- she might have shuddered. As it were, she merely sits on the chair laid out for her on these very meetings, and says:

“Well? Out with it then, you clearly have something to say.”

Andrew laughs, the sound disturbing in a way that’s slightly manic, like rusty knives against brittle stone, whilst Aaron speaks for them: “The Goddess of Death defying her own power, taking the first step down an unfamiliar road.”

Andrew hits Nicky on the back of the head and the eye goes bouncing into his hand, where he shoves it in so he can peer at her. “How will she cope, I wonder? How will she cope, indeed?”

“Two threads winding together, a future that can’t be predicted; exciting! So exciting!” sings Nicky, and the other two echo him.

Allison demands, “Are you going to get to the point, or are you just going to wax vague bullshit at me?” and they all grin, showing toothless mouths and gaping eye sockets.

“Did it hurt when you were struck by Eros’ bow? Or has the arrow gone astray, only doom awaits? What will it be, what will it be?” they chorus, and she scowls.

“Vague bullshit it is. In that case, I’m going.” She storms out, in a whirl of skirts, their laughter following her every step of the way. It isn’t until she’s safely on her throne that she realises she’s shaking.

 

 

Allison has gone to visit Seth exactly three times since they all went to their separate places, and all three of them was as messy and unpleasant. He’s angry, is the thing- always has been, feeling too strongly and then not knowing how to deal with it, letting it stew until anger becomes resentment and resentment becomes a poison that eats away at the bones. Even when they were still in Cronus’ stomach it was the same, and Allison was never able to master how to handle him; she cared for him, just like she did all her siblings, but when faced with anger she responds with her own jibes, poking the lion until it’s slamming its weight against the cage, and so they fought more frequently than anyone else. This remained unchanged even in the wide open world, and if anything Seth’s displeasure with his new situation only made it worse.

The first time it started with a snarled comment from Seth about how Allison was obviously their Father’s daughter, and ended when she gave him a black eye and told him, “Keep it up like that and someone’s gonna find a way to end you like the miserable bastard you are,” before leaving. The second time they got through an hour of calm conversation before an ill timed remark let to a screaming match that lasted another hour. The third time, things had been fine for five minutes before she’d mentioned Dan and he’d scowled.

“Of course the bitch is happy on her stolen throne.”

“Stolen?” Allison had asked with a raised eyebrow, even as her jaw tightened.

“It should have been mine.”

“We drew lots; no-one stole anything.”

“She cheated!”

“How do you even cheat at drawing straws?”

“She bribed the Fates.”

“No-one can bribe the Fates, they’d probably do the exact opposite just to spite whoever dared.”

“You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you? It’s alright for you, you were probably in on it!”

“Do you even hear yourself anymore? You sound crazy.”

“The only one crazy here is you! Are you actually telling me you believe in that Bitch over me? She never went through what we did- how do we even know she’s actually our sibling?”

“She saved us, Seth; surely you are able to be grateful for that?”

“We could have saved ourselves.”

“Yes, because we did such a good job of that, all those centuries we spent inside a stomach.”

“Are you fucking- Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“There aren’t sides in this, Seth.”

“Yes there are: you’re either with me or you’re with her.”

“…you’re really making me do this?”

“Don’t sound so surprised; you knew this was coming eventually. There’s no way to keep both of us, not with this feud.”

_“Feud?”_

“Would you rather I call it a cold war? A fracturing of the family? It’s a feud, and someday it’ll probably be more than that. I need to know if you’re with me or against me.”

“God, you’re really doing this, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then I choose neither of you.”

“I see.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And I’m not, which was always the problem. Goodbye, Hades; don’t come back here again.”

“Farewell, Poseidon.”

And so Allison lost a brother.

 

 

_(Dan was unsurprised when she told her, though she was remorseful. “I should have known he wouldn’t deal with it well, but there wasn’t much choice.”_

_“Do you think it will become a war?”_

_“I think it might, eventually. Do you really intend to stay out of it?”_

_“I do. I will not support him in his attempts to take you out, but I have no wish to fight him, either.”_

_“That is fair. I do not blame you, sister, nor will I try to sway you.”)_

 

 

Seth had never been a particularly active participant in any of the gatherings on Olympus, but since that fateful third meeting he stopped coming all together. The mood was a solemn one when people discovered why, and his empty seat was watched with something approaching grief; for ones as long lived as them, with bonds so deep, to lose a family member is like losing a limb. It will heal, with time, but it still hurts enough that that prospect seems incomprehensible. When they’ve grieved, they will have to plan, to prepare for that far off day when this feud boils over and becomes a war whilst Allison will retreat to her realm and play Switzerland, but that is not today.

Today, they sit and they drink, sharing stories of times they all spent together long ago, reminiscing of the days before the idea of family fractured into pieces. They laugh over new stories, amusing tit bits gathered on the younger additions, such as the time Abby tried to woo a naiad or the time David attempted to commandeer Cerberus as a horse. It is here that Allison hears about Renee, gathers more colours to fill in the picture; the way she panicked the first time flowers grew at her whim and frightened Katelyn with her scream, her misconception that the new colour to her hair was because someone had paid a trick on her so she’d cut it all off (it had taken years to grow back, Katelyn said fondly. But she did get very good at flower crowns in that time).

Allison’s affection for this woman grew with every story, and it was almost enough to ease the pain. Alm _ost_.

_(It can’t numb the steady, acidic burn when she thinks of those days when it was just her and Seth, knowing nothing but the stomach in which they lived and each other. Can’t heal the itch when she remembers how he was the one to make her laugh that first time, of the warmth of his hand in hers as they huddled together. Can’t get rid of the ache in her lungs as she remembers the disappointment on his face, the way his back had looked so lonely as he turned away from her and she yearned to reach out for him and take it back._

_It can’t change the thought that maybe she’d made the wrong choice, after all)._

 

For the next century or so, Allison becomes something of a hermit, not leaving her realm unless for business and turning away most visitors. It’s not the best way of coping nor is it something she is particularly proud of, but it helps her. Helps her reach a point of tranquillity in her mind as she works through her thoughts methodically, quietly, without any interference from outside sources- well-meant or not. Though she is not complete isolate given that she still interacts with those in her realm, the relative disconnect from the outside world is grounding, in the ways that it reminds her of those first few decades she spent alone.

It means that, when she finally faces the light once more, she is able to think about Seth without feeling broken glass on her tongue. The first person she sees is Dan, who smiles at her and says, “Welcome back,” but there’s a tightness in the way she holds herself, her smile not quite reaching her eyes.

“Of course,” Allison’s lips quirked in a smile that rings hollow. “Where would you be without me?”

“Flailing around as helpless as a new born babe, no doubt,” Matt comments, but the hug he gives her is warm, at odds with the whispered, “I’m so sorry,” in her ear. She realises then that when she’d been grieving her relationship with one sibling, she should have been grieving two.

Thea is next, and their usual banter holds none of the softness that used to be there, something close to malice sharpening every word Thea lets drop; they’ve never been close, but it seems as if the gap has grown and now they are shouting at each other from two sides of a river, never quite reaching each other. She works her way through the list, visiting each of her relatives, and finds the same such changes in all of them until finally only Katelyn remains. Katelyn had been last, largely for the reason that her visits with Katelyn tend to be longer than those with any other, and partly because her domain is one of the ones that Allison enjoys traversing the most. There’s a certain serenity to Katelyn’s home, endless nature that can shun you as easily as it welcomes you; she likes the feel of the grain against her bare feet, watching the wind make them dance this way and that.

_(Katelyn had laughed at her, once, said that perhaps she should have been a God of nature, instead of getting a grand title like Queen of the Underworld. Allison had responded, “I’d pity the humans if that was the case.”_

_“Why?”_

_“If I’d been a Goddess of anything as finicky as nature, they would have probably died from famine ten times over. At least with death they’re already dying so it’s not like I’m going to do much damage with anger. I can’t imagine how much control you have to have to avoid causing a famine every time you’re upset.”_

_“Oh, that’s easy: I just let myself feel.”_

_“You what now?”_

_“If I’m sad, I cry. If I’m angry, I shout. If I’m happy, I laugh. By getting out the feelings when and where I have them, I don’t hold onto them long enough for them to transfer across my power and into the mortal world.”_

_“Hm, clever. And easier said than done. Which is why you’re the Goddess of agriculture and I’m in charge of dead people.”)_

But things had changed in Katelyn’s realm, after all these years. For a start, there were the flowers that bloomed here, there and everywhere, blossoms of every colour and size imaginable scattered amongst the grain and the grass. It also seemed more closed off, the trees seeming to form a barricade as if Katelyn was trying to protect something from thieves and trespassers. The change is as confusing as it is concerning, but she is still able to pass through the domain with ease, so she shrugs it off as being something other than Katelyn also wanting to try at being a hermit.

She gets an answer when she reaches Katelyn’s home- or rather, from the garden beside it, where the flowers seem to multiple until there is more flower than there is grass. In the centre of them, where they seem to bloom brighter, stands the dancing soldier. Or rather, the Goddess who was once her- Renee, who the humans now call Persephone, with her pastel coloured hair and robes as white as her slate. Renee, who turns to look at her with a frown of confusion, taking in the woman with the hair of gold and a crown of bone, and wondering, _who is this intruder?_

And all Allison can do is stare, still enchanted by that magnetism she’d had when she was human. _Oh_ , she thought, around the ringing in her ears and frantic thud of her heart. _Oh. So this was what the Fate’s meant by Eros’ arrow._

The realisation was startling at best, disastrous at worst- for love worked out all well and good for people like Dan and Matt, but she was not. She was the bogeyman hiding under children’s beds, the stories told to inspire people to behave, the one everybody prayed to stay away- she was the Goddess of the Underworld, of death, and love was not something she was meant to have. It wasn’t something she was sure she wanted to have, not after Seth, not after learning that everyone she cared for would soon try to pick each other off. And Renee- Renee was the Goddess of Springtime, the very embodiment of life, and literally the closest thing to an opposite of Allison that you could find. The Underworld would be no home to her, taking her there in the name of love would be like damning her to a prison away from everything she embodied, and Allison could not leave it for the surface, not when there was so much relying on her.

 _It could not happen_ , she realised, heartbroken in the same breath she realised she was in love. And so Allison buried the shards deep down even as the fires of the Phlegethon roared with her pain, plastered on a smile that she did not feel but no-one had ever seen through. Said, “Is Katelyn here?”

“Yes,” Renee said after a pause and her words were as soft as her hair looked now it was no longer matted in blood. “Who should I tell her is looking?”

“Allison,” and she watched the way realisation lit up in her eyes, the suspicion fading slightly.

“You were the one who gave me a second chance?”

“I suppose you could say that, yes.”

“Thank you,” she said, so sincerely that Allison had to blink in the face of it. And then: “It’s not much, but please- take this as a token of my gratitude.” She advanced on Allison with quick, light steps that said even with the centuries her soldiers training had never quite drained away, and pressed a bundle of small blue flowers into her hand- campanula, if she remembered correctly, which she probably didn’t.

Allison held them to her face, trying not to notice the way her skin tinged where Renee had touched it, and said: “Well, thank you, I suppose. They’re rather pretty.”

“I’m glad.”

“Now about Katelyn?”

“Ah- yes.” Renee laughed, cheeks dimpling with the force of her smile and Allison’s mouth was dry when she swallowed. “I’ll just go get her.”

Renee turned and hurried through the garden to where a large building loomed, and Allison covered her eyes with a hand. Whispered, “Fuck.” And then, once more, with feeling: “ _Fuck_.”

_(She doesn’t linger with Katelyn, keeps the visit as short as she can without amassing suspicion when she flees- and she does flee. She has no shame in admitting that, running back to her realm where she is something close to safe. Once there, she allows herself to crumble as she hadn’t been able to have whilst under witness, the realm echoing her emotions with her. Thanatos keeps everyone away from her, stopping all the trials for that day, and Cerberus curls up beside her on the throne room when she finally collapses into tears. She has no doubt that somewhere the Fates are laughing at her, but the anger is distant now, buried beneath the hurt._

_“Love at first sight,” she murmurs to herself, and the laughter that follows is a bitter as the taste of gunpowder on her tongue._

_The campanulas go into a vase in her bedroom; barely half a day later they are withered and dead)._

 

 

In spite of all logic, she returns to the garden to visit Katelyn, yearning for those short moments she can have with Renee. She always smiles at Allison, giving her a new flower every day, and Allison never has the heart to tell her that they cannot survive the Underworld. These visits are the highlight of Allison’s life, that little glimpse of Renee enough to settle something warm in her stomach, and Katelyn is always eager to tell her all about her daughter, dropping stories and updates that Allison laps up like an eager dog.

Love has turned her into a fool, she knows, is aware of it all too clearly how this is bad, but she’s unable to help it- no matter how good she is at hiding it on the outside, she’d never been very good at lying to herself. And so she continues with these ill-advised indulgences, like a smoker trying to quit who finds themselves lingering in search of second hand smoke even if they know they must not use a cigarette themselves.

_(She finds, when she thinks of Renee, she can almost forget about Seth, and that is probably what hurts most of all)._

Allison learns that Renee still holds onto her skill at fighting even when she buried her knives deep beneath the roots of a tree, and that Renee views her godhood as a second chance where she can make up for her past mistakes and be a better person; views Allison saving her as something divine, even with knowing it was a whim. She learns that Renee thinks of Katelyn as a mother, and among all the Gods she’s met Allison is the only one Renee ever asks about. She learns that Renee likes to walk in the moonlight, because she’s befriended Jean and finds it peaceful in ways the day can’t provide. She learns and learns and learns, with every new thing Allison discovers she only finds herself tumbling deeper down into this hole she’s dug herself.

Allison learns and with every day the yearning in her heart grows stronger, all whilst she hides it studiously behind layers of masks and lies.

_(She only hopes the rest of the world believes them more than she does herself)._

 

 

Renee’s debut into Olympus is exactly thirty years after Allison came out of her period of isolation. The gilded gates open for all, as they so rarely do, and all apart from Seth are present (Allison tries not to think about the ache of that particular scar). Allison smiles, the lone spot of darkness in a hall full of people who glow, and tried not to think about how it feels a little like being set apart, tries not to think about any of the traitorous little thoughts swimming round her mind. And there are all too many, such as how Renee is stunning as she performs the political tango, smiling at everyone as flowers dog her footsteps. Tries not to think about the slight pang of jealousy she feels when Sara and Engle flirt with her and she doesn’t turn them down.

Tries not to wonder at how standing in a room full of her siblings no longer comforts her as it used to.

_(She leaves the event as early as she can without being rude, and doesn’t notice a certain pair of eyes that watch her go)._

 

 

The next time Allison comes to visit Katelyn, Renee grabs her by the hand just before she is about to leave and says, “Would you mind if I have a moment with you?”

Allison had said “not at all,” meaning every word more than she should, and found herself being led from the garden to- another garden. Renee’s garden, as it is so revealed, the one part of the domain that is hers and only hers. The area seems to exude peace, a grove surrounded by vine covered fences and filled with flowers of Renee’s choosing.

“It’s lovely,” Allison says, and the honesty is worth the smile Renee gives her.

“Thank you. I wanted to have a space of my own where I could just- be alone, and so Katelyn gave me this, where no-one can disturb me unless I allow them in.” A slight pause, a stem worried between her hands. “I’m sorry for dragging you away like that, I just wanted to talk to you without someone listening.”

“Hm?”

“I want to get to know you,” she said, honestly. “The real you, not the act you put on around the others.”

A pause. And then Allison laughed. “My, how bold! How daring!” She settled down on to the ground, skirts pooling around her. “Go on then, let’s see if you can figure me out.”

Renee smiled, sat down in front of her, close enough that their knees were touching through their clothes. “Well then, first of all-“ and that’s how it all begins.

  

 

The stories always say that Hades kidnapped Persephone from her garden, dragged her to the Underworld and raped her, but this is not so. In this story, Hades and Persephone meet once every so many months, in this garden away from prying eyes. There they relearned each other from scratch, talking the hours away as they fulfilled their desire to learn everything about each other. They want to understand each other and they do, in as well as two different people can understand each other, sharing parts of themselves they’ve never shared with another person before.

Allison talks to her about those years of the beginning of her life, of her conflicting emotions on most subjects and the way she’s never quite felt right except when she’s in the Underworld. She talks of how she tried to avoid picking between her brother and sister and yet, in doing so, feels she lost them all. In return, Renee tells her of how her gratitude for Katelyn is odds with the way she feels smothered, like Katelyn has a perfect little world and she doesn’t want Renee to step out of it. She talks of how she sometimes wakes up and finds herself reaching for a knife, expecting there to be the next attack or the latest danger, how she’s often surprised to find her hands clean of blood. She talks of how she feels like Godhood has given her a chance for freedom but she still can’t reach it no matter how hard she stretches.

They confide in each other as they never have before until, eventually, it feels like no-one knows them better. They spend time with each other until the buds between them have blossomed into a bond as strong as an oak tree and their hours together become their chance for a moment of happiness; until Allison is able to breathe past the flowers rooted in her lungs because she can have Renee as a friend even if she can’t have something more, until Renee is able to look past the artificiality Allison tries to put on and see the woman beneath.

And naturally, this is where everything goes wrong.

 

  

The fault- if one is determined to put the blame on a singular cause- is Sara and Engle’s. Or, more specifically, their attempts to woo Renee. Both were apparently quite smitten by her from the short interaction they managed to snatch on Olympus (something Allison found darkly amusing in its irony; apparently Renee just had that effect on people, to grab their beating hearts by the hand with one look until they feel like they can barely breath around their infatuation) and were determined to have her heart and her hand. So they began to court her, persistently, no matter how unwelcome it was, and whenever Allison saw Renee she looked tired.

_(“Katelyn is unhappy,” was what she said, when Allison asked after her wellbeing._

_“Are you?”_

_“…I am unsure.”_

_“You’re allowed to feel for yourself, you know; you don’t have to live for Katelyn no matter how much you think you owe her.”_

_“I- I know. But knowing and actually doing so are two different things.”)_

Katelyn’s rage at this courting was known throughout the cosmos, and even Allison- who had stopped attending gatherings at Olympus- heard about it in all its violence. She forbade anyone from seeing her daughter, not allowing her out of the confines of their gardens, the trees now designed to keep people in as much as they are to keep them out. Allison was no exception to this, and so instead she sent her servants to watch over Renee, for Katelyn couldn’t protest the presence of murder of crows roosting in the trees, no matter how much she wanted to.

_(And oh, she wanted to- everything angered Katelyn, these days, seemingly driven beyond reason in her protectiveness of this woman she called her daughter)._

So their only contact was through these birds and what little glimpse Allison could catch in her looking glass. As such, she didn’t know that Katelyn had destroyed every gift anyone tried to give Renee, so caught up in her paranoia that someone might steal her daughter away. She didn’t know that Sara were still able to find ways to sneak in, and that even though Renee didn’t reciprocate their interest, she was grateful for what little company she could have.

_(She did know that Jean was among the only people allowed to see her, given Katelyn’s approval of their friendship and the fact that Jean already had a husband. She knew that Jean was the only person Renee had informed of their friendship, of the reason crows stood a silent vigil over them, and that whilst Jean didn’t understand it he promised to support her._

_She did know that Allison was not the only person to cry over that statement)._

It seemed for many years that there was only darkness awaiting them, in this path they’d set upon. But then Katelyn found out about Sara’s sneak visits, and this was the last straw for her.

  

 

Allison doesn’t learn about what happened until hours after the fact, when she feels someone breech her realm through one of the few entrances not bared by a Gate and, upon going to confront this foolhardy trespasser, finds Renee with her hands on her knees, panting for breath as several riled crows screech overhead.

“Renee?” she asks, confusion rapidly giving way to concern, and Renee looks up at the sound of her name. The sound she makes is almost a sob, choked down and strangled by the tightness of her throat, and she lunges towards Allison, clutching at her arms with the desperation of someone whose been plunged into water and yet to figure out how to float.

“Help me,” she begs, desperate and pleading all in one, the whites of her eyes reddened by veins. “Don’t let anyone find me, please.”

Allison doesn’t say, _“I’ll do anything for you,”_ even as the words bubble behind closed lips. Instead she takes her by the hand and leads her through the realm, waves away all but one of the crows who comes and settles on her shoulder, whispering secrets to her with every quiet, heavy step.

Allison doesn’t say anything as she leads Springtime into a prison of stone and death and shadows, because each word she says will only be more damning than the last. And Renee, following easily, allows herself to weep far away from where the sun can see it.

_(Later, once Renee has been settled in one of the tasteful velvet seats with a mug of tea brewed from leaves they get from the surface, she tells Allison everything. About how Katelyn had caught Sara red handed and her scream had shaken the earth; how Sara had been chased out of the domain and Katelyn had grabbed Renee by the arm and begun to drag her away. About the steady stream of promises she’d uttered about how she’d keep Renee safe, how no-one would be able to find her to take her away, and how Renee was struck by fear. How she’d beseeched Katelyn not to but her words had fallen on deaf ears and she knew, right then and there, that this place was no longer home to her._

_In quiet, almost grieving tones, Renee tells her that she’d knocked Katelyn out and ran, with no direction in mind beyond ‘_ away from here _.’ How the crows had found her when she was terrified and panicking, reminding her of Allison with her gentle smiles and careful respect, and had entreated them as her guide to the Underworld._

_And guiltily, the one piece of information that sticks in Allison’s mind is that when Renee thinks of a safe space, she thinks of Allison._

_When the words die out and Renee merely stares solemnly into her cup, Allison promises: “You are welcome here for as long as you need.”_

_“But what if Katelyn never calms down? What if it’s forever?”_

_“Then you will have a place here, always.” She taps a perfectly manicured nail against the arm of her chair. “Anyone staying here is under my protection and that means I will keep you safe.”_

_“Even from your own family?”_

_“We stopped being family a long time ago,” and the words no longer taste bitter on her tongue, the simple truth that she’d long since accepted._

_“Thank you.” Renee smiled then, a weak, tremulous thing but a smile nonetheless, and it eased some of the tension from Allison’s shoulders, smoothed out the jagged lines. “You’re very kind, Allison.”_

_She snorted. “Not an adjective most people would use with me.”_

_“But I’m not most people.”_

_“No,” and she smiled here, even as there was beating of wings in her chest. “That you are not.”)._

 

 

Renee is given residence in the guest bedroom that had been willed into existence just for her, and Allison spends the night making arrangements instead of sleeping. There are considerations that need to be made for the living to stay in the Underworld, and since it isn’t a situation they’ve had before she has to do it from scratch. Thanatos and her work tirelessly to sort it out, all whilst Allison’s various familiars fly around the realm to deliver the news along with choice warnings about what will happen to anyone who tries to harm the guest of their Queen.

By the time Renee wakes in the morning and comes down for breakfast, the realm is hospitable for someone of her kind and Allison is already working on various trials. She spares Renee a distracted smile as she wonders into the throne room with food in her belly and interest on her face, and asks:

“Did you sleep well?”

“Yes I did, thank you; there’s something terribly comforting about the total darkness.” And then, carnations climbing from the ground at her feet: “Could I watch?”

“The trials?” When Renee nodded, Allison tilted her head in consideration. “I- suppose it can’t harm anyone.”

She waves her hand, a second seat forming beside her throne, and Renee smiles warmly at her as she settles into it, squeezes her knee in thanks. Allison’s heart jumps in her throat and she swallows before gesturing for the guards to bring in the next soul. The trials are completed with little disruption, as mundane as they are every other day, and Renee watches it all with open fascination. Every now and then she asks a question but she doesn’t try to make Allison change her judgement, and Allison eases into the set up more comfortably than she’d imagined.

_(“Don’t you find it boring?” She asks, in an intermission between the dead._

_“Nothing you do is boring,” Renee replies, and a camellia sprouts in her hair)._

The trials become an everyday thing, Renee watching Allison work, in breaks between trials they converse, Allison finding herself laughing and smiling more than she has ever before. Noticeably so, for Cerberus bestows Renee with their brand of gratitude (which consists of a lot more dog saliva than palatable for most) and even Thanatos goes out of his way to notify her as such. When they’re not doing the trials, they go for walks through the realm, allowing Renee the kind of freedom she says she’s never had before.

_(“When I was human I was the daughter of a King and a nereid, raised to be a hero from birth. After death, Katelyn was kind to me, but she was too protective; I’ve never been able to just go where I want.”_

_“The Underworld is yours for the roaming, though much of the realm is hardly the kind of place someone would want to be seen dead in, let alone take leisurely walks.”_

_“I think it’s beautiful.” And then, a hesitant pause, “Like you.”_

_A smile, as genuine as the pitter patter of her heart: “I’m flattered, considering you’re the one who should really be called beautiful.”_

_Their hands, entwined together, as private as their words)_

In the mornings, Renee starts making her flower crowns, intricate structures of colour and petal that Allison places over her real crown with a laugh and thanks. In the evenings, they are placed by her bedside table, and she watches them with fascination as they do not die.

_(“It’s magic,” Allison murmured to herself once, Renee’s head on her shoulder._

_“Hm?”_

_“Things aren’t meant to live here. Flowers usually wither in the space of a few hours, unless they’re asphodels or are in certain sections of the realm.”_

_“Well I’m here, and I’m alive.”_

_“Yes,” and she smiled. “And you certainly are magic.”_

_Renee’s laughter could have put an angels song to shame)._

Their days together are peaceful, so much so in fact that they both begin to forget exactly what it is that brought Renee here in the first place.

And as with most things, it does not last. 

 

 

It is Katelyn who comes, the first time. She storms into the Underworld, David acting as her guide, and stares down Allison on her throne; looks at the way Renee’s fingers are tight around Allison’s, at the flowers on her brow and the crow on Renee’s shoulder, and shudders.

“How dare you, you _wretch_ ,” she snarls at Allison, all self-righteous fury. “You thief! Return my daughter to me!”

“I cannot return to you that which was not stolen,” Allison says, calm in the face of the storm, feeling the weight of the darkness on her shoulders like a coat.

“Don’t lie to me! There’s no other reason why she’d be here!” And then, to Renee: “Don’t worry sweetheart, I’ll get you out this place.”

“I do not want to leave,” Renee told her, white chrysanthemum’s forming along the arms of the chair.

“What?”

“I said I do not want to leave. I chose to come here, Katelyn, and I am very happy; there’s no reason for me to leave.”

Katelyn’s face cycled through a variety of emotions before finally settling on horror. “She’s done something to you, she must have. She’s twisted you, oh my poor daughter! I’ll help you, I swear I will.”

“You are not hearing me, Katelyn,” and Renee sounded tired now. “There is nothing to save me from.”

But Katelyn would not be swayed. When she finally left, an hour later with a frantic David hurrying to keep up with her lest she end up eaten by an Underworld creature (and honestly, Allison is tempted to let them do so; they’d only be too willing to comply), and only exhaustion remains in her wake. Renee sighs, with something a little like despair, a little like regret, and Allison squeezes her hand. Says, quietly, “Are you alright?”

“No,” Renee replies, honestly. “But I stand by my decision; I feel good with you, in a way I never felt on the surface.”

“Then I will do everything to ensure you can remain here.”

“I believe you,” she said, and meant every word.

 

  

On one of their many walks, they come across the orchard. Renee is delighted, staring around it like it’s the most awe inspiring thing she’s ever seen.

“I thought you said things couldn’t live here.”

“They can’t. These plants are like me and all the other residents- of death.”

“So dead?”

“No. We _are_ death.” A considerate pause. “Were a living mortal to touch me, they would be dead in an instant. Were a God to ingest my blood, they would be bound to me by death. These trees are the same; if someone not of this realm were to eat from its fruit, they would be bound here.”

“By how much?”

“One pomegranate seed would mean they are bound here for a month a year.”

“So if someone were to eat twelve they would never leave?”

“Yes. That is why we imported surface food for you to consume.”

“I see,” Renee said, and there was a glint in her eyes that Allison didn’t quite understand. “Come, show me more; this place is like no garden I’ve ever seen before.”

_(Allison didn’t see the pomegranate that Renee hid away beneath her skirts- wouldn’t hear of it until much, much later, in a time more dire than this)._

 

 

“Tell me, Allison,” Renee says. “Why did you save me?”

Allison’s hand twitches, halting in its absent minded stroking of Renee’s hair. “What brought this up?” she deflects.

“I want to know.” And then: “Please.”

Allison hesitated for the length of time it took for her heart to move from one beat to the next, before she sighed. “It’s not very interesting, you know; in fact, it’s probably the opposite of anything you want to hear.”

“I don’t mind.”

“No, I don’t suppose you do. It was a whim, really- you were beautiful, somehow, dancing across the battlefield like that, and I found myself drawn to you.” A breath, “I felt it- when you died, like a light had dimmed, and all I could think when I looked at your empty face was ‘this is not right.’ And so I bought you back. Quite dull of me, I know, but it is what it is.”

But Renee seemed frozen a few steps back. “Beautiful?” she asked, and Allison laughed.

“Don’t try to be modest; we both know that you’re stunning.”

But, “Beautiful?” she breathed again, turning those wide, stunning eyes on Allison.

“Yes,” Allison said, throat feeling tight. Renee reached a hand out to cup Allison’s face, one thumb caressing her cheek, and she asked again:

“Why did you save me, Allison?”

And Allison replies, “Because I fell in love with you.”

Renee beamed, delighted, dazzling in a way that could rival the sun, and Allison didn’t get a chance to linger on the way it looked before she was being pulled down to a kiss. And then- well, she didn’t get to do much thinking at all.

_(Later, when two rooms have been merged into one, as they lie pressed together on the bed, Renee asks: “Will you marry me?”_

_And the only reply Allison can give is, “Yes.”)_

 

  

They are wed two days later, the ceremony a quiet, precious thing; the only guests from outside the realm are Jean and Jeremy, the only two aware of the match who support it and have no long simmering malice for Allison, but they bring enough warmth to fill the room. Jeremy is the only member of Olympus who can be considered pure, in the sense that he loves fiercely and without judgement; even Allison, the wild cat in a pack of wolves, is not an exception to this, and the hug he gives her is so overwhelming that her eyes water.

“I’m glad you found someone to make you happy,” he says, and every word is as honest as sunlight on a summer’s day.

Jean is more subdued than his husband, but he still hugs Renee with a smile and sincere congratulations, and the words he has for Allison are no less pleased. Everyone else present is a resident of the Underworld in some shape or form, all gathered to watch the union between their Queen and her Lady love; respect and loyalty is what they offer in their vigilant gazes, in the way they drop to their knees for both instead of just one. Cerberus is sniffling from where they loom over the proceedings, and though no-one can see Thanatos’ eyes from behind the blindfold he wears, there is a patch of wetness in the fabric.

When they have said their vows and sit on matching thrones, Renee laces her fingers with Allison’s and says, “I love you.”

And Allison replies, “I know.”

_(That night the entire realm is filled with flowers and they are still blooming when the morning comes)._

 

 

News spreads quickly of the fact that the Queen of the Underworld gained a wife, and not everyone was happy at this. In fact, most people were decidedly unhappy, and this had never been more clear than when David turns up in the throne room again, looking uncomfortable in a way that didn’t suit him.

“I bear a message from the Queen of Olympus,” he said, like each word was lead in his mouth. Allison nodded for him to carry on when he hesitated, looking between their faces and where their hands sat clasped between them on the arms of their thrones. He cleared his throat: “She demands that you release the Goddess of Springtime to the surface once more.”

“There is nothing to release me from,” Renee answers, an echo of a conversation had many times before.

“That may be so, but the surface world needs you. It’s-“ he licked his lips, nervously. “The surface world is dying without you. Katelyn has forbidden the earth to produce in her grief and without your powers, there is no spring- only an eternal winter. The mortals are suffering.”

Silence followed his pronunciation, Renee’s grip on Allison’s hand hard enough to cut of circulation, and when she chanced a glance, the colour had been leached from her face. “What,” she whispered, and there was a tremble to her voice that spoke louder than words. Allison closed her eyes and knew, right then, that she was lost to her. Renee’s hand convulsed around hers and then, what felt like decades later, David asked softly:

“Please. Zeus has spoke of war, if you don’t come back, and with the already high tensions between the Sea and the Sky- the cosmos wouldn’t survive a three way war between the realms. None of us would.” He got down on his hands and knees, bowing his head to the ground. “Please, I’m begging; come back willingly, before chaos comes for us all.”

A beat, then two, then three, Allison’s heart slowed like someone had shoved it in a bucket of tar, until Renee’s hand went limp in hers. And then, quietly: “Tell them to give me one more night with my wife. I will go in the morning.”

And Allison could hear nothing over the shattering of her heart.

_(That night they sleep clinging to each other desperately, each kiss weighted with desperation at the knowledge that it would probably be their last. Allison wakes when Renee stirs and they go through the movements of preparing with the heavy movements of someone going to a guillotine. They stand together at the entrance of the Underworld, hand in hand, watching as Zeus comes up the steps to meet them with the smirk of a woman who knows they’ve just won._

_“Come along then, Persephone,” she says, mocking, and every breath Allison takes drags like broken glass against her lungs. Renee pressed a final kiss to her lips before she is dragged away, breathes ‘_ My home will always be with you _,”_ _against her lips, and Allison is left with a heart slowly crumbling to pieces as she watches her love go to a place she can’t reach._

_She’d tasted of pomegranates and the promise of a future they can never have)._

_(It isn’t until night has fallen that she finds the pomegranate sitting on the table in the room, as if it is left there in a hurry. The sides of it are split, the seeds spilling out, and Allison thinks, oh. “Oh,” she breathes, a hand over her mouth and tears in her eyes. “Oh, my love.”_

_It is only when she finds Thanatos and demands answers that she finds out what exactly Renee planned to do. It is then, and only then, that faint stirrings of hope return to her life and she finds her heart being taped together once more, jagged edges and all)._

 

  _(By the next day, all the flowers she’d left in the realm are dead, no longer close enough to her power to be sustained against the death that seeps from the cracks in every wall. Allison holds a crown of roses whose red petals have shrivelled black, and lets the tears fall._

_Cerberus finds her like this a few hours later, and they whine their concern, nuzzling her head with giant noses and curling their body around her to block out the world. She falls asleep like that, resting against them with tears drying on her face, dreaming of pastel hair and a dancing girl)._

 

It takes a few weeks for Allison to recover, to draw the mask up around her like a shield from the world, but she does- she’s always been among the most adaptable of the Gods, the only one able to make whatever situation they’re in their own. She judges the dead, only leaves the realm to visit Jeremy and Jean, and carries on with her life with her head held high and a smile on painted lips. Humans have by now already heard some mockery of the tale and have begun to spin the story of Hades and Persephone, the cruel King of the Underworld who abducted the sweet springtime Goddess and imprisoned her beneath the earth; when Allison hears of it, she throws her head back and laughs with a mirth more artificial than not, and she tells the creature who’d seen fit to inform her of it to fuck off.

_(“What did humans ever know?” she mutters, but the raven perched on her arm has no answers)._

Sometimes, she indulges her need to get away by freeing herself from the prison of flesh and bone; she’ll shift, learn what it feels like to run as a wolf or fly as a bird, see the cosmos through the eyes of different creatures and wonder at life. Once, she shifted into a human’s skin, walk among them like so many of her brethren have done before her, and let herself enjoy the marvel that is anonymity. No-one ever looks at her like that and thinks ‘Evil’; no-one ever dismisses her as the Queen with a heart as black as her realm. No-one ever approaches her with a grudge from a thousand years ago or annoyance over the fact that she’s different or some perceived betrayal, and in this she is able to breathe, admire the world that Renee had made- a world as beautiful as she is, alive and flourishing. She’s able to experience just as everyone else does and it’s… it’s freeing.

 _‘I’ve never been able to go where I want_ ,’ Renee had said, looking out at the Underworld like it was the most glorious place in the world, relishing in the ability to put one foot in front of the other without people judging or jibing in some way or another. Relishing in the ability to exist, completely unhindered by the rest of the world.

And Allison understands, in a way she hadn’t before.

  

Three months after Renee left the Underworld, Allison is called once more to see the Fates; she goes with steel in her spine and in her jaw, all too aware of exactly how such an encounter will go. They do not disappoint- Andrew spins, Nicky measures, and Aaron cuts, the eye being passed between them like a game of musical cups. They look up in unison as she sits down, their lips spreading into smiles at the exact same time, and murmur:

“Ah, here she is! Here she is, Eros’ arrow jammed so deep it’s started to bleed.”

“Hello to you too,” she drawled, but was ignored.

“You had her and you lost her, all in the same breath,” Andrew’s voice as empty as ever. “How sad.”

“How sad! How sad!” the other two echoed.

“But it’s not over yet- six seeds sown, their roots already spreading; will she make it, or will she not?”

“She will!” Nicky said, in the same moment Aaron crowed, “She won’t!”

“For once in your lives can we actually talk about what we’re meant to?” Allison asked, with very low expectations.

“Who will break first?” Aaron grabbed the eye out of his head and shoved it into Andrew’s face. “Look and see! Look and see!”

“Oh, how very exciting indeed,” Andrew began, and Allison threw her hands up in the air and walked out, not wanting to stick around to find out what they did see.

“Why do I have to work with them,” she grumbled, trying to rub away a chill that went down to her very bones. “They never actually do the fucking work and instead wax cryptic at me like some two bit fortune tellers.”

She shook her head but couldn’t shake the sound of their cackling from her ears.

  

The punchline comes three months later when a raven flies in the middle of a trial, so frantic that Allison can barely catch a third of what they’re saying. She signals the trials to be put on hold and runs her hands through their feathers, murmuring, “Easy. Easy,” until they’ve calmed down enough to speak coherently.

“Lady Renee-“ they say, wings flapping. “She’s collapsed! They took her to Olympus!”

“Collapsed? But- why-“

“The seeds! She ate the seeds,” they cry, the sound ricocheting around the room, and Allison freezes, remembering the pomegranate on the table and the secret she’d all but forgot. Freezes, eyes wide as they stare out across the empty room and remember lips still stained with juice and the quiet vow:

_‘My home will always be with you.’_

She stands, quickly enough that the bird is barely able to right itself, distressed caws ignored as she rushes across the room, doors flying open before she’s even reached them. “Thanatos!” she shouts, and he appears after barely a moments pause. “My chariot, I need it quickly.”

He bowed his head and then vanished. It takes her a minute to flash to the stables and he’s already holding the reigns, the four immortal horses already ready and waiting for her. She thanks him, the words little more than a distant thought through the ringing in her ears, and she sits.

“To Olympus,” she orders, and the horses run, run, _run._

 

  

The Olympians are all gathered when she gets there, grim faced and solemn around a corpse- for that is what Renee is right now: a corpse, laid out in the middle of the room as they puzzle over exactly why. There is no blood pumping through her body, no beating of her heart, no air in her lungs- she looks, for all the world, like this is the battlefield and Allison never remade her into something more. Allison knows better- understands this in a way no-one else can, more intimate with death than any can ever achieve- but still forgets what it feels like to breathe for a moment, feeling for all the world like she’s drowning. But she does know, so she shakes it off, lets the shadows pool around her and the air grow heavy to announce her entrance.

The Olympians all look up as one, and Demeter’s sobs turn to rage at the sight of her.

“You did this!” she yells, voice hoarse with the force of her emotion. “You killed her!”

Allison merely blinks at her. Says, as calm as that moment of acceptance when a person knows their time is near: “If it makes you feel better, Demeter, then I suppose you could say that.”

Demeter makes as if to rise, mouth already opening for another accusation of some kind, but Zeus raises her hand from where she sits on the throne and Demeter subsides. Zeus stares at Allison and Allison stares back, as unaffected as she was on the day she was asked, “Why did you choose the Underworld?”, as surefooted as when she’d replied, “I didn’t choose it; the Underworld chose me.”

_(She does not think of what happened to the sister she used to know, to the bond that used to be there; does not wonder what it was that changed things between them so deeply as to destroy it._

_She doesn’t do a lot of things, these days)._

Eventually, Zeus says: “Why are you here, Hades?”

“To take my wife back where she belongs, Zeus.”

“She belongs with me,” Demeter cries, but Allison doesn’t spare her a glance as she replies:

“Clearly she does not, or she would not be like this.”

“Can this binding be reversed?” Zeus asks.

“No; for half of every year Renee is as much a part of the Underworld as I am. Trying to deny this would only harm her.”

A silence, the only sound the tapping of Zeus’s fingers against the arm of her throne. Finally: “Then take her, Hades. We will discuss more of this when she is awake to discuss them.”

Allison inclined her head in acknowledgement, and then turned all of her attention onto Renee. She was heavier in her arms than she looked, compact muscle that spoke of her training as a soldier, and her skin was as cold as sand on a winters night, any heat lost in this space of purgatory she’s entered. Allison holds Renee in her arms as she has so longed to do since the day she left, and yet there is no relief, no warmth- only a body that might not live and the distant awareness that all that awaits is another separation.

But she holds on, as tightly as she can manage without hurting her, and every step she takes is taken together.

  

 

When Renee returns to life it is like she has merely woken up from a deep sleep. The moment they enter the Underworld her heart starts beating again almost lazily, as if it had merely been taking a break all this time. Warmth seeps into her skin and she shivers as Allison places her in the blankets of their bed, the air in her lungs exhaled in a sigh as her body remembers to breathe. And then her eyelashes flutter open and she smiles, a private thing so full of love that it’s almost like a slap.

“It worked,” she says, her voice little more than a cracked whisper from the lack of use, and Allison feels a sting in her eyes.

“Yes, my love. It did, though I do wish you’d warned me before hand.”

“If I had you’d have probably tried to talk me out of it.”

“Well yes, we might have been able to find something less extreme than dying.”

“Dying is worth it if it means I can see your face every morning,” and Allison laughs, presses a kiss to Renee’s lips again and again and again, the happiness bubbling up and over until it feels like floating.

_(They don’t let go of each other that night, clutching at each other like someone might pop out of the ground and try to drag them apart. In the morning, Renee will make a flower crown of primroses and Allison will paint Renee’s lips as pink as her hair, the smiles never leaving their faces. In the morning, they’ll walk hand in hand through the halls and everyone who passes will say ‘Welcome back, Lady Renee,’ two thrones filled instead of one._

_In the morning they will return to their lives together, but for now they cling to each other and don’t let go)._

 

 

In the end, it is Zeus who comes to the Underworld to carry out the negotiations, guided in and around by Cerberus and their steady growling. She stands with her feet shoulder width apart and hands loose at her sides, a stance that would seem relaxed if not for how Allison knew it made it easier for her to reach her lightning bolt; Renee and Allison are a united front on their thrones, fingers entwined, something as deliberate as the way Zeus stands. The talks go on for hours, both sides needling and pushing for things most beneficial to them, a political song and dance with pitchforks for instruments and fire for dancers, but eventually they part, an agreement reached.

The agreement is like this:

For the first three months and the last three months of every year, Renee would stay in the Underworld. In her time there, no God may try to interfere, and she is considered the Lady Consort of the Underworld above anything else. For the rest of the year, Renee would spend it in the surface world. She is to be given her own domain, one separated from that of Demeter’s, and though she is not allowed any direct contact with Allison through these sixth months, they are allowed to communicate through what means they can figure out. As her own Goddess, none of the Olympians are allowed to try and make decisions for her, and should a crisis occur she is allowed to extend her stay in the Underworld for as long as she needs.

It is hardly the best agreement there could be, and there are many things about it that are unpleasant for those involved, but it could have been worse. This is something they know very well, and so they settle for it, enjoying every moment they have together all the more fiercely now they know they must eventually part. Renee’s new domain is her own garden, one closer to the Underworld and located near the river Acheron. Allison’s servants carry messages to and fro so they may keep updated on each other’s wellbeing, and on occasion Allison is able to sneak there by shifting herself to match their form.

_(They try to make this a rare occurrence, kept only for days when one of them is feeling particularly low, for fear of what might happen if they are discovered)._

For the sixth months Renee is in the surface world she does her duties of spring time, growing flowers and letting the vegetation flourish, keeping the mortals alive with her gift. When she returns to her home, the plants wither and winter comes to the humans; every spring is more vibrant than the last, and now that they know loss the humans value it all the more, viewing the warmth and the blooms as something of a reward for surviving winter. She showed them that nothing was exempt from the cycle of life and death, and they learnt well.

And Allison waits for her, always, counts her years by time with and time without. Though she no longer chokes on loss every time Renee leaves, there’s still a happiness to her that can only be seen during the months of Autumn and winter, when she has her wife at her side and love in her heart.

_(They’d been bound together by Fate since that day Allison saved a dancing soldier from death, and it is a bond that nothing can shatter- not distance, not family, not war._

_It’s called love and though it doesn’t define them, it does complete them- gives them a joy that they could never have known without)._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After many years where the tension brewed and resentment simmered, friendships forming and breaking with every breath, the Gods split into two. Half of them side with Poseidon, the other half side with Zeus; sibling turns against sibling, child turns against parent, family against family. It’s a long, drawn out battle, the powers of the Sea and the Sky matched too well for there to be an obvious victor, the other Gods little more than foot soldiers in comparison to their power. Those who take the most damage from it are the humans, victim to floods and famines and storm after storm after storm; the dead swell quicker than they do in the middle of another one of their many battles, and the Underworld’s population swells with it.

_(Like children throwing tantrums they give no thought to those affected by their actions, too caught up in their own self-righteousness, drunk on their own power)._

In the Underworld, it’s Queen and her wife sit unbothered by the violence that has overtaken their family, six months together extended indefinitely as they wait it out; Allison had promised, many years ago, that she wanted no part in their war, that she would not pick sides, and it was a promise she kept. None of the other Gods could reach them, unable to enter a realm where they are not welcome, and so no-one can try to force their hand- so no-one does. They simply take it all one day at a time, relishing in the presence of the one they love, experiencing their very own happiness.

_(And they were the only ones to do so- the only ones wise enough not to get involved in a power struggle on the level of this one)._

Even deeper in the Underworld, in a corner allocated to them by Allison’s gracious hand, the Fates continue to work without tiring- Andrew spins the thread, Nicky measures it, and Aaron cuts. It’s as mundane a routine as any, a fact so driven into reality that it’s unchangeable; the sun rises, people die, the sky is blue, and the Fates will continue to twist people’s lives for their own amusement.

“The end is set, love won out yet,” Nicky hums, mouth gaping into a grin that showed nothing but gums and a gaping maw.

“What to do next?” Andrew and Aaron ask, blinking around empty eye sockets. The only eye sits on the table between them, spinning around every so often as it watches the world.

“What next indeed!” They all say, and then laugh, their cackling rising to a fever pitch. The shears screech and a thread is cut, the life snapped out, and no-one sees as they dig their claws into someone’s future, twist it as they see fit.

“We shall see, we shall see,” they murmur, one after the other, and the eye is picked up between careful fingers, looking at something only they can see. “We shall see.”

One spins, one measures, one cuts.


	2. Sometimes the path to Exy is pathed by dying and being dead.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An Epilogue, taking place a very, very, very long time later in the time we like to call modern society.

Neil Abram Josten died a lie, shot by his Father after hours of torture. He’d continued running to the end, with no-one to give him keys and something to fight for; he’d ran until he couldn’t anymore, the tendons in his legs cut, his mother a pile of bones buried miles two countries over. When he breathed his last, a woman sculpted from gold appeared in front of him, she knelt beside him and somehow none of the blood stained her dress.

“Come now,” she murmured, brushing his forehead with her knuckles. “Beat for me.”

His heart seized, and started to beat again, and she shoved him onto his side seconds before he threw up. She sat back, watching with the mild interest of a person observing an animal performing entertaining tricks. It takes several minutes before he’s able to stop, spitting out a glob of blood, and he twists to look at her with the wariness of a cornered cat.

“What,” is what he finally manages, his voice hoarse from screaming, and she smiles at him.

“Welcome back to the realm of the living.”

“What.”

“You could say thank you, you know. I technically shouldn’t be doing this in the first place, but my wife was very firm about it- ‘he deserves a second chance, just like the one you gave me’ she said, and well- who am I to deny her what she wants?”

 “I died,” he said, more a statement than a question, and she raises an eyebrow like he’s a particularly slow child.

“Yes, very violently at that- not the most gruesome I’ve seen, but still, you made it to the top fifty.”

“You- brought me back to life. Because your wife asked you to.”

“Yes, are there any more obvious statements you’d like to parrot back or are you good?”

“But I was dead,” and there was something approaching panic in his voice now, eyes darting here and there as if he was searching for an exit.

“And now you’re not. You can play exy to your hearts content.” He glanced at his legs, anger twisting his face, and she followed his gaze until the realisation hit. “Oh- I almost forgot about that.” She placed her hand over the wounds and unmade them, all his injuries fading as flesh knit back together and blood found its way into veins once more. Once she finished Neil looked more pale than before, if that was possible, and he carefully tested his legs; they moved as easily as they always had, and his entire body slumped in relief.

“Thank you,” he breathed, and she laughed.

“Of course- you’re not grateful for your life, but for your legs. Gosh, I can see why Renee wanted me to save you- you’re exactly the kind of person she’s so fond of collecting.”

“Renee?”

“My wife- do try to keep up, Nathaniel. Or wait, no- you preferred Abram, didn’t you?” and those words were like the drip of acid against a wound long forgotten. He shifted his feet so he could run, suddenly struck by the age old instinct in the face of danger, but he didn’t get the chance to act on it before there was the creak of the door. A shout followed mere seconds later, the sound causing Neil’s attention to whip around immediately, fear spreading its roots in his heart and in his lungs and his legs to collapse under him. The woman turned more slowly, with the air of someone indulging a child, and she did little more than clap her hands at the sight of the various armed people standing in the doorway, Neil’s father head.

“How silly of me, I almost forgot about that part as well!” No-one got a chance to question this proclamation before she’d waved her hand and all the people froze, swaying there for a second in the stunned silence of people who never saw the bullet until it was too late, and then collapsed like marionettes with their strings cut. Neil stared, eyes wide with so many emotions he couldn’t quite understand caught in his throat as the woman rose to a stand.

“An exchange,” she said, amusement practically a physical weight as she stretched. “Your life for theirs and all that- not a consideration that usually is needed, but sometimes you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.”

“He’s dead,” Neil breathed, and it felt like freedom. And then: “I’m alive.”

“That you are. Do try not to waste it, please- it would be terribly disappointing if I’d saved you only for you to spend the rest of your life running under however many aliases you can think of. Go back to that sport of yours, or something- Renee liked seeing you play that.”

“Exy,” he said, something he’d longed for all his life but had never been able to have, not since the day his mother grabbed him in the middle of the night and introduced him to a life of running. “I can play exy. But-”

“You’ve nothing to hide from anyone anymore. It’s your life, enjoy it whilst you can- because I can tell you that you only have fifty years left and I won’t revive you a second time.” She tilted her head, listening to something only she could hear, and then snorted. “That’s my cue to leave. Bye bye, Abram; try to hope you don’t see me again anytime soon.”

She’s already at the door before he thinks to call after her. “What are you?” is his final question, and she pauses to grace him with one final smile, the sunlight through the doorway catching on her hair like a halo.

“I have many names, but I suppose your people would best know me as Hades.”

And then she was gone, leaving no trace behind that she’d ever been there.

_(If asked about it, many years later, Abram would talk about how his life was saved by a King that was actually a Queen, who gave him another chance just because her wife asked her to. He would talk of a woman who stood in the door, bathed in golden light, and swear that he saw her hand-in-hand with a woman who smelled of flowers._

_But no-one ever asked, and so it remained his little secret)._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed it, despite how it was cobbled together at the last minute!


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